The Starships Enterprise
by 0ctober Rain
Summary: A spacial phenomenon brings the two crews together beyond all laws of time and physics. How will they deal with such a traumatic event?


**"The Starships _Enterprise_"**

**Part One**

"Have you ever met a Parkeni woman, Mr. Spock?"

For the past week, _Enterprise_ hung quietly in space, a safe distance from a newly discovered wormhole while her crew took as many samples and readings as the ship's scientists could think of to report back to the Federation. The excitement of being the first humans to view the phenomenon had waned over the days, and now the mood on the bridge was one of relaxed contentment beginning to take a turn for boredom.

But Spock did not see that as a reason not to have anything other than full concentration on his tasks. This attitude, however, seemed to be the minority. Sulu and Chekov were chatting at their stations; Dr. McCoy was retelling one of his folksy stories to a new yeoman; and Kirk was leaning back lazily in his chair, thinking—as evidenced by his topic of conversation—of the female sex. It seemed Lt. Uhura proved the only other crew member on the bridge who shared Spock's philosophy; she remained turned toward the comm station, bent to her work. However, a quick sidelong glance—its brevity still enough to express long-suffering, barely-veiled exasperation—told Spock that, try as she might, she could not completely block out Kirk's endless drivel.

Spock, who had been bending over Chekov's helm in case the young man's lack of attention caused him to miss a small reading, rose to his full slender height. He clasped his hands behind his back. "No, Captain. I cannot say I have had the pleasure of meeting a woman from Parken."

McCoy looked up, smirking impishly. "You probably cannot say you have had pleasure _at all_, can you, Mr. Spock?"

Surprisingly, the young yeoman replied. "Oh, no, Doctor. Vulcans do indeed feel emotion." She blushed when she realized how many pairs of eyes were on her. "Er, my roommate in college studied a semester on Vulcan…"

Her tone had an apologetic air that Spock found unnecessary. He liked the yeoman. Unlike most women on the _Enterprise_, she wore slacks. A most logical decision. Too often female members of away teams had returned from planetary missions with superficial but unnecessary injuries to their legs. A mere scrape against a rock-face was enough to draw blood in most cases, something that could be avoided completely if the Starfleet uniform was indeed _uni_form and not _duo_form—one uniform for the men and a different one for the women.

A second foreseeable problem with the uniforms of the women was body temperature regularity. Environmental settings that proved comfortable for the men left the women shivering; adjusted for the comfort of the women, and the men would sweat. Either way, Spock was always chilled. But that was one of his many discomforts to be suffered silently.

"Oh, I know that, dear," Dr. McCoy said to her, smiling warmly.

Kirk smiled. "You'll have to excuse the doctor, Yeoman. It's something of a mission of his to get a rise out of Mr. Spock."

"It is illogical to expend valuable time and energy on futile missions," Spock stated, knowing that it would not matter how many times he repeated himself. _Perhaps it is illogical for me to continue repeating myself? But then they would perhaps see my silence as their victory? Yes. It is logical to continue voicing my resistance._

He returned to his station and studied the instruments' readings. Over an hour ago, they had fired a barrage of photon torpedoes toward the black hole. Their passive observations complete, the crew now began what Kirk called "poking it with a stick to see what it will do." Normally torpedoes were not fired at this range; however, a shot aimed even remotely in the direction of the wormhole would be caught by its gravity and pulled in. Automatic bull's-eye.

Now they had to wait and see if anything happened.

With any luck, the wormhole's other portal would be someplace where the emergence of the energy of the torpedoes' blast could be caught on sensors. The witness, if a member of the Federation, would have reports that Starfleet would eventually realize showed activity from the results of experimentations carried out by _Enterprise_.

…But the chances of that happening were very, _very_ slim, despite the fact that all starships were under orders to closely watch passive sensors.

_An illogical waste of weapons_, Spock mused as he leaned over the panels. _Like firing a bullet from an old-time Earth-gun into the air and hoping that it returned to earth to nick the shoulder of a long-lost twin._

Most likely the torpedoes' energy would flare momentarily through whatever portal this black hole led to, be witnessed by empty space or dead stars, and would be sucked back into the portal from which it had so briefly escaped. Anything without the energy to escape with the help of the short-lived momentum afforded from being shot through the wormhole would simply be sucked back in again, only to have the same thing happen on the other side, and then back to the other… a veritable loophole. The escapes would be weaker and weaker each time as the gravity took its toll, until it finally stopped emerging at all. And where it went… well, logic dictated that it would be a long, long time before black holes and wormholes were ever completely understood.

Kirk's voice droned on. "How was I supposed to know that the anatomy of a Parkeni woman was so… _different?_ So there I was—"

"Captain," Spock interrupted, "my calculations show that the torpedoes will reach the mark in less than one minute." Once his words were released, he noted a slight shifting of the crew members—sitting straighter in their seats, peering more closely at readings, concentration turned toward the large view screen.

"Ten seconds, Captain. … Nine … … Five seconds…" Green and blue lights danced across Spock's face as he studied his instruments. "Torpedoes should now be entering the black hole proper, Captain."

"Well… now we wait." Kirk stroked his chin with the forefinger of his right hand, his habitual contemplative gesture.

And they waited. Again.

* * * * *

Picard was vaguely aware of the cramping in his hands, a result of their white-knuckle grip on the arms of his command chair. The lurching and bucking of the ship, uncontrolled by the malfunctioning inertial dampeners, threatened to fling him through the air like that beautiful chestnut mare had done when he was sixteen. It had been his own fault, his own impetuous youth, trying to force the mare to take a jump that would have been a challenge for the most seasoned jumper. The horse had been smarter than he, though, and would have none of it. She had balked at the jump, turned, and swiftly ridded herself of her gangly rider. Even now, decades later, Picard could remember the smell of the dirt and grass he had landed in…

_Sixteen?_ he mused in some dark corner of his mind, where all was not chaos. _Was I truly ever so young? Why does this memory come now? Is this the beginnings of life flashing before my eyes?_

Around him the bridge had taken on a haunted air in the pulsing red light of the alert system. Sirens wailed; orders both from him and from Riker roared over the noise; one man who had been thrown violently from the helm groaned from the deck, his leg twisted at an ugly angle.

There was no chance to pull out of the draw of the wormhole that had, up until a short time past, been content to spiral in the vacuum of space from its black hole portal. An unexplored wormhole, virgin, there for the studying and—with any luck—to be used for the good of the Federation in the future.

But then the beast yawned those massive jaws that swallowed galaxies, and the "safe distance" the _Enterprise_ had kept was no longer safe. No longer enough to allow escape should the unthinkable happen. Then, a sudden and unforeseen burst of energy increased the mass of the black hole, increased its already unimaginable gravitational pull, and it began to draw the starship inexorably closer.

The last hour had seen countless attempts by the skilled engineering team, led by LaForge, and by the helmsmen to coax the _Enterprise_ onto a heading that she could use to escape… but nothing had worked. And the pressure had been building… oh, the pressure… the pressure that compressed red giants into whatever form the black hole saw fit. Smoke began billowing, foul-smelling electrical smoke. The crewman on the floor groaned no more.

"Abandon ship! All hands, abandon—"

Darkness came. Sound ceased, then, though consciousness did not. The mechanical purrs, the whirring and humming of the computers, the wail of the sirens, the cries and shouts of the crewmembers, and the desperate order of Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Desperate, yet still in control though all was lost. Knowing it would be his final command to his crew. Realizing even as he shouted the words that the order was in vain. If the _Enterprise_ could not escape, no escape shuttles would have a chance. But he was the captain, and it was his instinct and duty to cling to hope where there was none.

Silence roared with hurricane ferocity in Picard's mind—he wasn't sure he even still possessed ears—and his being seemed compressed as though in a vise. The pressure continued to increase beyond all comprehension, but the pain which should have accompanied it seemed… anticlimatical, as if the force required to shift a being of the third dimension into the second dimension was too much for even pain to keep up with.

_I can't draw breath_, Picard thought, oddly without panic. _I'll suffocate. I should have already suffocated._

Perhaps that was the answer? That he had indeed already suffocated, and that this… phenomenon… was the undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveller returns?

_At least there is Shakespeare in death…_

But if there was Shakespeare in death, then there was pain also; the pain that had been shy of its duty now came with the confidence of a Vice Admiral. Picard's consciousness begged for a body with which to writhe, for teeth to gnash, for lungs to scream.

And if this was not death, he begged for death to come on its swiftest steed.


End file.
